“I met him when I was going for my luggage,” said Jimmy.
It was just the way Marsden Tuke would have got out of it. Tuke was always wriggling out of corners like that. Mrs. Pett’s horror of Jimmy grew.
“I told him, of course,” said Jimmy, “that you had very kindly invited me to stay with you, and he told me all, about his trouble and implored me to plead for him. If you had seen him when I did, all gloom and repentance, you would have been sorry for him. Your woman’s heart–”
Whatever Jimmy was about to say regarding Mrs. Pett’s woman’s heart was interrupted by the opening of the door and the deep, respectful voice of Mr. Crocker.
“Mr. Sturgis.”
The detective entered briskly, as if time were money with him–as indeed it was, for the International Detective Agency, of which he was the proprietor, did a thriving business. He was a gaunt, hungry-looking man of about fifty, with sunken eyes and thin lips. It was his habit to dress in the height of fashion, for one of his favourite axioms was that a man might be a detective and still look a gentleman, and his appearance was that of the individual usually described as a “popular clubman.” That is to say, he looked like a floorwalker taking a Sunday stroll. His prosperous exterior deceived Jimmy satisfactorily, and the latter left the room little thinking that the visitor was anything but an ordinary caller.
The detective glanced keenly at him as he passed. He made a practice of glancing keenly at nearly everything. It cost nothing and impressed clients.
“I am so glad you have come, Mr. Sturgis,” said Mrs. Pett.” Won’t you sit down?”
Mr. Sturgis sat down, pulled up the knees of his trousers that half-inch which keeps them from bagging and so preserves the gentlemanliness of the appearance, and glanced keenly at Mrs. Pett.
“Who was that young man who just went out?”
“It is about him that I wished to consult you, Mr. Sturgis.”
Mr. Sturgis leaned back, and placed the tips of his fingers together.
“Tell me how he comes to be here.”
“He pretends that he is my nephew, James Crocker.”
“Your nephew? Have you never seen your nephew?”
“Never. I ought to tell you, that a few years ago my sister married for the second time. I disapproved of the marriage, and refused to see her husband or his son–he was a widower. A few weeks ago, for private reasons, I went over to England, where they are living, and asked my sister to let the boy come here to work in my husband’s office. She refused, and my husband and I returned to New York. This morning I was astonished to get a telephone call from Mr. Pett from his office, to say that James Crocker had unexpectedly arrived after all, and was then at the office. They came up here, and the young man seemed quite genuine. Indeed, he had an offensive jocularity which would be quite in keeping with the character of the real James Crocker, from what I have heard of him.”
Mr. Sturgis nodded.
“Know what you mean. Saw that thing in the paper,” he said briefly. “Yes?”
“Now, it is very curious, but almost from the start I was uneasy. When I say that the young man seemed genuine, I mean that he completely deceived my husband and my niece, who lives with us. But I had reasons, which I need not go into now, for being on my guard, and I was suspicious. What aroused my suspicion was the fact that my husband thought that he remembered this young man as a fellow-traveller of ours on the -Atlantic-, on our return voyage, while he claimed to have landed that morning on the -Caronia-.”
“You are certain of that, Mrs. Pett? He stated positively that he had landed this morning?”
“Yes. Quite positively. Unfortunately I myself had no chance of judging the truth of what he said, as I am such a bad sailor that I was seldom out of my stateroom from beginning to end of the voyage. However, as I say, I was suspicious. I did not see how I could confirm my suspicions, until I remembered that my new butler, Skinner, had come straight from my sister’s house.”